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9. Portraits With Over-Exposed Backgrounds - Fill Flash
The pervious section, “Night Portraits”, considered how we’d be able to expose a foreground object and a distant background object simultaneously, both of which are dimly lit. This section discusses using the same technique to even out the exposure for a scene in which the background is brightly lit and the foreground subject is in the shadows. As we’ve learned from other articles, our sensor has only a certain tolerance for variations in light across a scene. If our subject in the foreground is dimly lit when compared to a brightly lit background, then there is a distinct possibility that the variance between the two may be too much for the sensor to handle. This means the shutter speed or aperture setting required to properly expose the foreground subject will create over-exposure in the comparatively bright background. Therefore, just as we did with the night portrait, we may use our accessory flash to even the exposure of our foreground subject in comparison our brightly lit background. This technique is often referred to as fill flash. By illuminating our subject with the flash, we bring the foreground exposure up to a level comparable to that of the background. This allows the camera sensor to record adequate detail in both the foreground and the background.
ISO 100, 80mm, F/8.0, 1/320 sec (with fill flash on foreground subject to bring him up to the same exposure as the scene outside the window)
Of course, the uses of fill flash are numerous. For example, we often use fill flash in brightly lit outdoor scenes. Certain light can cast deep shadows across the faces of our subjects. We can use fill flash to even out the exposure in those shadows slightly. So any circumstance that presents high contrast lighting, with one of the subjects within range of the flash, can be a candidate for fill flash techniques.
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